Cathie from Canada

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Blog, blog against the dying of the light"

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Gonna wash that man right outta my hair

First, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah cancelled a US state dinner in his honour with just two weeks notice, something about having to wash his hair that night.Now he has given the opening speech to the Arab Riyadh Summit in which he describes the US occupation of Iraq as an illegitimate foreign occupation:

King Abdullah denounced the American military presence in Iraq on Wednesday as an "illegitimate foreign occupation" and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians.The Saudi monarch's speech was a strongly worded lecture to Arab leaders that their divisions had helped fuel turmoil across the Middle East, and he urged them to show unity. But in opening the Arab summit, Abdullah also nodded to hardliners by criticizing the U.S. presence in Iraq."In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said the king . . . Abdullah insisted that only when Arab leaders unite will they be able to prevent "foreign powers from drawing the region's future.""The real blame should be directed at us, the leaders of the Arab nation," he said. "Our constant disagreements and rejection of unity have made the Arab nation lose confidence in our sincerity and lose hope."

"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Oh, who do they think they're kidding -- we all know that the Iraqi who "requested" the invasion was Chalabi, and we all know the US and Britain didn't dare ask for a Security Council "mandate" before the invasion; they only got a favourable vote after the fact because the UN membership hoped against hope that things would work out OK (and they were wrong. ) It isn't a response the Saudis will respect.Oh, and Jordan's King Abdullah has also cancelled the state visit he had planned for September, something about having to wash his hair that night, I guess.Bush is circling the drain now.